‘We believe in one God, the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and Earth….’
With this beginning, the Nicene Creed immediately sets Christian teaching apart from an entire world of faith systems; especially in the context of the Roman world from which this new movement was birthed. ‘One God’; in the face of the Roman/Greek/Pagan conception of a polytheistic universe in which a pantheon of gods sought to struggle and vie with one another for power, sexual dominion, and other various forms of conquest, Christian teaching silences this chaos entirely. There is no cosmic competition; no eternal battle for influence in which human beings become merely pawns and casualties. There is but ONE God, one source, one almighty Father and the impetus for all that is. This God is beyond competition; without equal, wholly free and uniquely pre-existent.
‘And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God…’
This oneness of God, however, is not aloneness. From the outset of God’s revelation of himself in scripture, we find that this one pre-existent God is not alone in himself. Rather, within one nature and one unity, we find community. Despite the mystery of this we recognize that, in a God such as the God of scripture, revealed to us in His very essence as Love, it follows that this God in his unique pre-existence would not be essentially ALONE, but necessarily in RELATIONSHIP. As this God is ONE, however, without peer or equal, with whom would this essential relationship have been before the foundations of time and space itself but with Himself? As such, the foundations of our understanding of the Trinity are laid. Who then, is this Jesus; the Son of God?
‘Begotten from the Father before all ages… God from God… not made… of one substance with the Father, through whom all things came into existence…’
Jesus is the one who takes us to the Father, and sends us the Spirit. He is the one sent by the Father, conceived by the Spirit, and born of Mary among us. Jesus is the son of the Father, who lives under and in the power of the Spirit. He is the one doing the work of the Father, by the power and enabling of the Holy Spirit. To deal with Jesus is to deal with both Father and Spirit.
The Son, co-inherent and in-existent with the Father and the Spirit, is one with them, although distinct from them. The Son is not created, but eternally begotten and coeternal. The Son receives Sonship, gives Fathership, and exudes Spirit. A variety of heresies have sprung forth from a misunderstanding of this relationship. Most notably Arianism, which proposed that Christ was not one with the Father and Spirit, but rather, created. Based on an anthropomorphization of sonship, Arius concluded that there must have been a time when the Son was not, therefore the Son could not be co-eternal with the Father, and hence the Son could not be one with the Father, but must be something essentially other. From the limitations of language, it may be understandable how Arius would come to this errant conclusion. However, to follow this conclusion to it’s natural end proves disastrous. For if Jesus is not one with the Father, then God Himself is not our savior, as scripture indicates; he sent someone else. As Christ alone is our essential hermeneutic and source of direct revelation of God’s character, if Jesus is not one with the Father, then we actually have no direct revelation through which to be in relationship with God. If this is the case, that, in looking at Jesus, we are not actually finding the revelation of God himself, then our whole discussion; our entire foundation for knowledge and belief is undermined. What begins as is a misinterpretation of language ends in our inability to know God. As such, the teaching of the Church affirms the oneness of the Son with the Father and the Spirit, as revealed by the witness of scripture and by the witness of Christ himself.
‘And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father… and the Son…’
The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God, proceeds from the Father and the Son as the very embodiment of their relationship with each other; the personified relational empowering and enabling within Godself. As such, though it has been a matter of some debate, the center and unity of the Trinity is not found in any one person of the Trinity, which would thus undermine the unity therein, but rather the unity of God IS the trinity. Such was the clarification of Athanasius and others regarding this point.
To lose sight of the unity within the Trinity is to fall into tri-theism; perceiving that there is not one God, but three, essentially throwing ourselves back into pagan pluralism. Everything that God does, He does as one God (ie. The Father creates in the Son, by the power of the Spirit); the works of God are essentially undivided.
To lose sight of the distinctions within the Trinity is to fall into Modalism: the perception that God is actually all one ‘stuff’ only revealed in three distinct expressions. Christian teaching maintains that God is both eternally and essentially tri-personal. These distinctions, within one nature, are that of RELATIONSHIP. The Father begets; giving sonship and receiving fathership. The Son is begotten; receiving sonship and giving fathership. The Spirit proceeds; from both the Father and the Son. These distinctions are not merely a matter of names or appearance, but essential and personal.
To lose sight of the equality within the Trinity is to fall into subordination, as we have already seen and discussed in the missteps of Arianism; to conceive of the Son or the Spirit as something less than God. All of these relationships, though complex and mysterious, are absolutely vital to perceive correctly. For, it is no less than the very essence of revelation of, and genuine relationship with, God that is on the line should we allow ourselves to embrace error. The stakes are far too high. May God guide us in all wisdom.
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